The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [283]
Looking disappointed at not getting a chance to force this last information out of the Doctor, Mr. Darrow asked, “You were, in fact, ordered not to return to your Institute for a period of sixty days, were you not?”
“Yes,” the Doctor answered. “It’s not an uncommon action for a court to take under such circumstances. It allows the investigation into what drove the boy to take his own life to be conducted more freely and effectively.”
“And has the investigation turned up any answers to the question of why the boy took his own life?”
The Doctor lowered his eyes just a bit. “No. It has not.”
“That must be particularly frustrating, for a man who’s spent most of his life trying to help children.”
“I don’t know that it’s frustrating,” the Doctor answered. “Puzzling, certainly. And distressing.”
“Well, I’m no alienist, Doctor,” Mr. Darrow said, walking over to the jury. “But I’d say that puzzling and distressing, when put together, can add up to frustrating without much trouble. Wouldn’t you agree?”
The Doctor shrugged. “They might.”
“And a person who’s frustrated on one front might be tempted to seek satisfaction on another—at least, that’s how it’s always seemed to me.” Returning to his table, Mr. Darrow picked up a book. “Tell me—do you know of a Dr. Adolf Meyer?”
Nodding, the Doctor said, “Certainly. He’s a colleague of mine. And a friend.”
“Children seem to be an area of special interest for him, too, to judge by his writings.” The Doctor nodded silently. “I take it you’ve read what he has to say about children with what he calls ‘morbid imaginations’?” After another nod from the Doctor, Mr. Darrow said, “Maybe you could tell the jury just what that refers to.”
“Morbid imagination,” the Doctor answered, turning to the jury box, “is characteristic of children whose fantasies cannot be controlled, even by conscious exertion. Such children often suffer from nightmares and night terrors, and the condition can even lead, in its most extreme variant, to delusions.”
Picking up a second book, Mr. Darrow walked toward the witness stand. “How about these two European doctors—Breuer and Freud? Do you know about them?”
“Yes.”
“They seem to’ve made quite a study of hysteria and its effects. I confess I didn’t really know what that word meant, until I started in on this volume. I always thought it referred to overexcited ladies.”
Quiet laughter floated through the galleries at that, and the Doctor waited for it to calm down before he said, “Yes, the word originated with the Greeks, who thought that violent nervous disorders were peculiar to women and originated in the uterus.”
Mr. Darrow smiled and shook his head, putting the books down. “Well—we’ve learned better, haven’t we? Just about anybody can be hysterical nowadays. I’m afraid I may unintentionally have driven His Honor pretty close to it.” The crowd laughed a little louder this time, but the judge didn’t do anything except give Mr. Darrow an icy stare. “And I do apologize for it,” the counselor said, holding up a hand. Then he looked at the Doctor again. “But I’m interested in what these gentlemen—Breuer and Freud—have to say about hysteria. They seem to think it originates in childhood, like the morbid imagination. Doctor, is there any chance that Clara Hatch suffers from either a morbid imagination or hysteria?”
I could see the Doctor working hard to keep from scoffing at the question. “No,” he said. “Not in my opinion. As I told the state’s attorney, Clara has experienced